


In a night

by CalmIsOverrated



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Slight locklyle at the end, casefic, pointless fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalmIsOverrated/pseuds/CalmIsOverrated
Summary: Lucy and Lockwood go on a case.
Relationships: Lucy Carlyle & Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle/Anthony Lockwood
Kudos: 41





	In a night

**Author's Note:**

> It's like... 3am. I'm still trying to understand how to write these characters. Also my phone sucks and keeps refreshing my page which is... splendid.
> 
> I'll edit or take it down in the morning because this is just rambling.
> 
> Tumblr is Calm-is-overrated

It had been a long night for Anthony Lockwood and Lucy Carlyle. Lockwood and Co.'s fame had them out working almost every single night.

On this night Lockwood and Co. had two- from the looks of it- rather easy cases. Though they knew better than to underestimate anything. But they decided to split into two groups.

They were confident in their abilities to take care of it so Lockwood hesitantly let them go. George, Kipps, and Holly had gone off to take care of a Stone Knocker on the opposite side of town that was haunting the boy’s locker-room in a highschool.

While Lockwood and Lucy left to deal with a reported Spectre that was haunting the outside of a small bookstore and harassing the store owner and his husband, as well as customers with feelings of unease and sudden cold spots.

When they'd arrived to the store the door was unlocked for them. There wasn’t much of value in there and the owner hadn’t wanted to take a trip there.

On the counter, near the register, was a about three papers stapled together. They read through the papers the owner, a kind old man named Mr. Fell, had left on the counter. They told Lockwood and Lucy the history of the store and what exactly the customers have been feeling.

In their research they didn’t find anything solid. The store itself was only about three years old and there were no accidents tied to the building itself. Which meant there was something under it or a source had unintentionally been brought in.

Then they had settled in and prepared for a visitor to finally appear. It was a slim male with indistinguishable features, he stood in one place, not moving. Lucy had been able to hear snippets of a conversation, only a few words here and there. It was a heated argument they only heard from the side of the boy. Lockwood tried to take note of his clothing, if he had to date it off the top of his head he’d guess late 1900’s. He was holding something in his hands, maybe paper. Then the boy shrieked loudly enough she covered her ears instinctively. Even Lockwood fullbody flinched, and within a second he had unhooked a saltbomb and thrown it.

Then he was gone, the air was still tinged with energy. Lockwood kept his rapier raised just in case but things remained still. “Did you see what he was holding?” Lockwood asked.

Lucy turned to him. “I didn’t get a good look, I was trying to figure out what he was saying. But it might’ve been paper.”

“Did you catch anything?”

“He was having an argument with someone. It might’ve been over those papers. There were quite a few of them, so perhaps it was documents? It was something someone wanted badly enough to kill over,” she shuddered.

Lockwood nodded in agreement and moved to the other side of the room. The ghost didn’t seem to be coming back anytime soon. Lucy went over to the nearest bookshelf and let her fingers run along the spines as she walked.

It was exhausting and rather boring so she couldn’t help the yawn that came from her mouth. She stifled it with the back of her hand and turned back to the front desk. A few things rested on its cluttered surface. Including an old looking typewriter that caught her eye with its rather odd appearance. There was a dent in the side of it like it had been dropped or hit something hard.

“Lockwood?”

“Hm?”

“Lockwood, come over here. I think I’ve found something.” She yawned again, and felt very tired.

What is it-” he stopped suddenly which Lucy though was a bit odd, but maybe he had noticed something. “Luce, move.”

“What?” Lucy blinked and then it clicked. Her sudden fatigue was actually ghostlock. Her reaction-time was too sluggish to draw her rapier so she whipped around in time to see the boy’s furious expression about ten feet from her and Lockwood’s rapier suddenly cut through it his already flickering form. For the second, and what would be the last, time that night he vanished.

Lockwood ran a stressed hand through his hair. “So, what was that you found?”

What Lucy had found was in fact the source. They guessed it had been the murder weapon with the dented edge. They were able to cover it- in the morning the owner would be sad to see it go- in a silver netting. Then they sat down on the floor with tea and biscuits to wait for Mr. Fell to arrive in the morning.

A short while after the sun started rising the owner met up with them. He had been thrilled it was finally over, a bit disappointed that his vintage typewriter had been what caused his dilemma. He thanked them profusely and offered both of them a cookie. Since neither had eaten much in a while they each took one, and promised not to tell George.

It was around seven in the morning when they managed to catch a cab and the sun was already rising in the sky. Lockwood rattled off their address and sat back with a sigh. Truthfully, he was still a bit rattled by the whole situation. His heart had stopped when he noticed the ghost behind Lucy, who was yawning. He tried not to dwell on it. The memory of tonight was plaguing his mind. Lockwood knew they couldn't go on like this. 

At the rate that they were, going out every night, sometimes not coming back before the sun was in the sky, they were running themselves into the ground. It was only a matter of time until it happened. He knew they couldn’t keep going on like this. He and Lucy had barely been able to drag themselves through this case. George had fallen asleep in his cereal. They needed a break. He decided they would take the entire weekend off in order to recover.

Lockwood turned to voice this to Lucy but he noticed his companion was starting to drift off, head hanging down on her chest and small snores coming from underneath the mop of hair that had fallen forwards when she had. Well that can’t be comfortable, Lockwood thought, a fond smile blossoming on his face.

They would probably be in the car for another two hours. She hasn’t slept in days, this is probably the first break we’ve had in a while. They had been dealing with back-to-back cases all week. Lockwood debated just letting her sleep. But if I don’t wake Luce up now, her neck will be killing her in the morning…

It appeared he didn’t have to decide on a plan of action because the cabbie made a rough turn and Lucy’s head thunked onto his shoulder. Miraculously, she didn’t wake up, just moved closer to Lockwood who was frozen still, scared to so much as breathe for fear of disturbing her.

Lucy pressed her nose into Lockwood’s sleeve and relaxed against him, he tried to do the same. Since his exhausted muscles had protested when he’d initially tensed he reminded himself to calm down. He was slowly losing feeling in the arm pinned at his side by his companion.

Lockwood carefully extracted it without disturbing Lucy, a silent victory before he realized he didn’t know where to lay his arm. When the cabbie turned again he wrapped his arm around Lucy’s shoulder to keep her where she was, safe and sound at his side.

He brushed away some of Lucy’s brown hair off of her face before stopping and turning forwards. Lockwood knew that his face was probably burning, he was just no one was there to witness it, not even that Skull. He hadn’t meant to do that, it had just happened unconsciously. Lockwood looked back at Lucy, she was still contentedly asleep against to him.

He shifted to get more comfortable, they still had a while to go before getting home.


End file.
